Barry Levinson, left, and Tom Fontana, center, executive producers of "Homicide: Life on the Street," return to prime time this month on BBC American with "Copper," starring Tom Weston-Jones, right.

Barry Levinson, left, and Tom Fontana, center, executive producers of "Homicide: Life on the Street," return to prime time this month on BBC American with "Copper," starring Tom Weston-Jones, right. (Reuters)

But I hated "The Jury," a series the duo did for Fox. They've had some failed projects since "Homicide" and "Oz," but I think "Copper" could be a winner. And it would be nice to have this team back in prime time.

Here's a radio review I did of "Copper" for WYPR, Baltimore's NPR station.

Analysts have said that America today is more polarized politically than at any time since the Civil War. I think Levinson and Fontana have captured some of the resonance between these two eras.

They do a terrific job in the pilot of constructing 19th-century New York City so that we see the sharp social class divisions -- a world of one very rich upper class and almost everyone else fighting for their scraps. It's a class structure some fear we are headed for again.

Part of the pleasure of the pilot is in watching their police detective, played by Weston-Jones, navigating those class divides. "Copper" is BBC America's first scripted drama. It's a nice way to get in the game.

Plans are afoot for Barry Levinson's 1982 film "Diner," a coming-of-age classic about five Baltimore guys on the cusp of adulthood, to be made into a stage musical. Producers hope to open the play on Broadway in 2012, although it's unknown when (or if) the play might come to Levinson's Charm City...

A burst of thunderstorm activity across the Chicago area in Sunday afternoon resulted in multiple injuries and a death at an event in west suburban Wood Dale, the collapse of a dome in northwest suburban Rosemont and the temporary evacuation of the music festival Lollapalooza in Grant Park downtown.

Now there are two: Zimbabwe accused a Pennsylvania doctor on Sunday of illegally killing a lion in April, adding to the outcry over a Minnesota dentist the African government wants to extradite for killing a well-known lion named Cecil in early July.